The legal cannabis market continues to enjoy success after lucrative success, solidifying itself as one of the most promising and profitable industries in existence. We’ve extensively covered the fact that the legal weed business is showing no signs of slowing down, with experts predicting that cannabis companies will easily rake in over $20 billion by the year 2020.
One of the toughest challenges faced by cannabis startups and impacting existing businesses is the fact that many U.S. banks and financial intuitions want nothing to do with them. Of course, this is due to the fact that the federal government continues to do everything it can to maintain its ludicrous stranglehold on legitimate legal weed – stifling sector growth and much-needed medical research in the process.
Despite these absurd federal hurdles, the legal herb business trucks on, with new niches popping up seemingly every week. One of the latest successes in the legal weed world is the fact that a marijuana fund will be trading on the New York Stock Exchange, starting December 26th, 2017. Formerly a real estate exchange-traded fund called Tierra XP Latin America Real Estate, the ETF is now switching its focus towards the green rush of legal herb. The exchange-traded fund is now being called Alternative Agroscience. The original real estate fund has been trading since 2015. In a filing made to the Securities and Exchange Commission in October, fund investors said they are changing both the name of the fund and its “underlying index and investment objective.”
The new objective of the ETF will be to track an index of cannabis companies that are engaged in the legal cultivation, production and distribution of cannabis products. They will also track pharmaceutical companies that make cannabinoid-related drugs, as well as keeping an eye on fertilizer and pesticide companies.
This drastic shift in focus for the ETF could come as a surprise to some investors that own shares. Some more conservative investors might decide to opt out of the fund. But, they’d likely be fools to do so, because money talks. And the legal weed business is booming. Twenty-nine U.S. states and D.C. have legalized cannabis for medical purposes. Eight states and D.C. have decided recreational cannabis sales should be legal. This is only the beginning. The Horizon ETF launched in Canada this past April, the very first cannabis ETF in the world. Since then, the ETF has secured $216 million in assets and has increased by 44% since the launch.
